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All that needs to be done for evil to prevail is good men doing nothing.

Edmund Burke

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Edmund Burke
Age: 68 †
Born: 1729
Born: January 12
Died: 1797
Died: July 9
Philosopher
Politician
Statesman
Writer
Dublin city
Prevail
Liberty
Evil
Nothing
Done
Needs
Good
Men

More quotes by Edmund Burke

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I take toleration to be a part of religion. I do not know which I would sacrifice I would keep them both: it is not necessary that I should sacrifice either.
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Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
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Parliament is a deliberate assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole where, not local purpose, not local prejudices ought to guide but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole.
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In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.
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Art is a partnership not only between those who are living but between those who are dead and those who are yet to be born.
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Despots govern by terror. They know that he who fears God fears nothing else and therefore they eradicate from the mind, through their Voltaire, their Helvetius, and the rest of that infamous gang, that only sort of fear which generates true courage.
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Thank God, men that art greatly guilty are never wise.
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Nothing, indeed, but the possession of some power can with any certainty discover what at the bottom is the true character of any man.
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A speculative despair is unpardonable where it our duty to act.
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It may be observed, that very polished languages, and such as are praised for their superior clearness and perspicuity, are generally deficient in strength.
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But a good patriot, and a true politician, always considers how he shall make the most of the existing materials of his country. A disposition, to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Everything else is vulgar in the conception, perilous in the execution.
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The moment that government appears at market, the principles of the market will be subverted.
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One source of the sublime is infinity.
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The question is not whether you have a right to render people miserable, but whether it is not in your best interest to make them happy.
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The people of England well know that the idea of inheritance furnishes a sure principle of conservation and a sure principle of transmission, without at all excluding a principle of improvement.
Edmund Burke
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The love of lucre, though sometimes carried to a ridiculous excess, a vicious excess, is the grand cause of prosperity to all States.
Edmund Burke
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The person who grieves suffers his passion to grow upon him he indulges it, he loves it but this never happens in the case of actual pain, which no man ever willingly endured for any considerable time.
Edmund Burke
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The most favourable laws can do very little towards the happiness of people when the disposition of the ruling power is adverse to them.
Edmund Burke
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All the forces of darkness need to succeed ... is for the people to do nothing.
Edmund Burke
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My vigour relents. I pardon something to the spirit of liberty.
Edmund Burke